DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 409
the last session ; how at the end of the day’s work we sat beyond 5 o’clock for two hours and the honourable the Minister for Law was allowed to make a speech committing it to a Select Committee, only three or four speakers, under a rigid time limit were allowed to speak and at 7 O’clock after a short session the motion was carried. Thereafter what happened ? It went to the Select Committee. The Select Committee reported on it and on the motion for consideration of that report points of order were raised in this House. I am not going to enter into the
merits of those vital points of order. They were disposed of. So great was the impatience that in the last session the honourable the Law Minister wanted to simply say that the Bill be taken into consideration and there was no speech. It was somehow got into the agenda. Very well it was done. Points of order were ruled out and it was found that it was within the competence of the House to go on with the measure as reported by the Select Committee. Now look at the way in which it is being dealt with now. In the short indulge between the Railway Budget and the General Budget this is sought to be pushed through. There is no seriousness about it. Nobody feels its importance. The country at large is bewildered by the way in which we are dealing with a piece of legislation of this far reaching importance. If you attach real importance to it, if you really mean business, if you want that something should be done by way of revising the Hindu law as it is today, this is certainly not the way to do it. Keep the Bill for a special session. For small Banking
Bills and the like you are devoting days and days. That being the case, do you mean to say that a Bill which seeks to regulate the life and conduct of the Hindu community should be dealt with in the haphazard way in which it is sought to be done ? I enter my emphatic protest against the way in which this important legislation is being considered. You know how at 3 o’clock yesterday there was the Supplementary Demand for Railways and later in the day the General Budget came in. I wish to submit, Mr. Deputy Speaker that I have not been accustomed to this kind of procedure with regard to Bills of this nature. I ask the old Members of the Legislature to recall a single precedent for this.
Babu Ramnarayan Singh : There is none.
Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra : Sir, the question is, is there any real necessity for codification. I see absolutely none, because, as my learned friend Shrimati Dorgabai said, the Hindu law is well settled and it has held the field for about hundred years. The ancient Hindu